Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Razxca

Razxca is the one man analog noise project of Mikhail Gusenkov. In email exchanges with Gusenkov, he informed me that he maintains an anti-consumerist lifestyle and chooses to live simply;wearing 2 dollar pants in a self sustained eco-village outside of Moscow refraining from drugs and alcohol. Over a year a ago he sold most of his music collection and some musical instruments including a djimbe. He cites Iannis Xenakis as an influence on his work along with dub and that he seeks to "create original dub vibes in noise wall." In his pursuit of making"rhythms without beats" Gusenkov utilizestape loops and "fail DATA",which he explained as using a trial version of Cool Edit pro and "playing" files not associated with sound and recording them to tape.

Gusenkov has amassed over 160 releases since 1997 with most of them being self released and always free of charge. Gusenkov sites the American net label Proc-Records as his biggest proponent, compares his music to Swedish project Blod, and claims association with the Low Bit aesthetic movement. The Ukrainian label Genetic Trance, whose stated mission is the dissemination of free information,recently anthologized the majority of Razxca's output on Works(2000-2010)and is available for free. At over three gigs, Works is impenetrable and I defy even the most brain-rotted static fiend to make it through the first two tracks which combine to make up the piece "42 Hours of Noise Kundalini." That title is no exaggeration, by the way. The brazen and self-indulgent scope of a piece that would take a work week to get through both horrifies and fosters a sneering respect for an artist who truly has no designs of gaining commercial appeal. Works contains shorter pieces as well; varying from sparse minimalist sketches to fully formed noise blowouts reminiscent of Japanese noise outfits such as C.C.C.C. For the uninitiated, I suggest checking out his split release with Italian artist Dust Cult. At a very palatable 7 minutes, "Uo" is a superb realization of intricately layered psychedelic noise that does indeed summon rhythmic ghosts. Razxca's N-Series cassette is another fine entry point to the work of this intriguing Russian artist.